On the back porch of a little farmhouse a rendezvous takes place with
the milkman. It was bitterly cold, and even though the girls wore
woolen dresses under their cotton aprons, they looked like frozen
turnips. The scenes being of tense love, the girls were supposed to
be divinely rapturous and to show no discomfort--not even know it
was winter. But the breathing was a different matter, for as young
Blanche uttered endearing words to her lover, a white cloud issued
from her mouth. Now that would look dreadful on the screen. So in the
nervousness of the situation Mr. Powell yelled at her, “Stop talking,
just _look_ at him, this is supposed to be summer.” She obeyed, when
from her delicate nostrils came a similar white line of frosted breath
at which the director, now wholly beside himself, yelled, “Stop
breathing, what kind of a picture do you think this will be, anyhow.”
So little Blanche proceeded to strangle for a few moments while we
secured a few feet of summer.
In “The Day After”--four hundred and sixty feet of a New Year’s party
picture, showing what a youngster she was, Blanche Sweet played _Cupid_.
Kate Bruce had become the leading character woman. Little Christie
Miller, frail, white, and bent, played the kindly old men, while Vernon
Clarges interpreted the more pompous, distinguished elderly ones. Daddy
Butler was mostly just a nice kind papa, and George Nichols played a
diversified range of parts--monks, rugged Westerners, and such. George
Nichols had been a member of the old Alcazar and Central Theatres in
San Francisco, where Mr. Griffith in his stranded actor days had worked.
Of the children, little Gladys Egan did remarkable work playing many
dramatic leading parts. Her performance in “The Broken Doll” should be
recorded here. Adele de Garde was another nine-year-old child wonder.
These children were not comiques. They were tragediennes and how they
could tear a passion to tatters! The Wolff children sufficed well in
infantile rôles. Their mother kept a dramatic agency for children.
Boys were little in demand, and as Mary Pickford usually had her family
handy, we came to use little Jack--he was at this time nine years old.
He created quite a stir about the old A. B. He even managed to make
himself the topic of conversation at lunch time and other off-duty
hours. “Had he a future like sister Mary?” We were even then ready to
grant Mary a future.
Lottie was discussed too, but in a more casual way. No one was
especially interested in Lottie. Mary was very hesitant in bringing her
to the studio; she confided that Lottie was not pretty and she didn’t
think she’d be good in the movies. She was the tomboy of the family and
she loved nothing better than to play baseball with the boys, and when
later she did become a Biograph player she had her innings at many a
game.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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